Final Week to Wax Historic!
Final Week to Wax Historic!
Special “Roll Back” Price of $5 per person!
LAST CHANCE to Visit Iconic Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf before Transformation to Madame Tussauds and The San Francisco Dungeon
August 15 is final day before renovation and reopening scheduled for Spring 2014
All Merchandise in Gift Shop 50% Off!
9 August 2013 – San Francisco, CA: On August 15th, after 50 years at the center of Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco’s famed Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf (www.waxmuseum.com) will shut its doors to undergo renovation and reopening as the world famous Madame Tussauds. The Fong Family, the proud operators of The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf for 50 years, would like to thank all their friends, colleagues, neighbors and visitors who have made the Wax Museum an international success for half of a centuryby offering a special “roll back” final week discount.
“It’s been our pleasure entertaining over 12 million guests and being open for business 2,600 consecutive weeks, rain or shine,” says Rodney Fong, 47, owner of the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. “We would like to offer the public one last chance visit at a special roll-back discounted price.”
From Monday, August 12 to Thursday, August 15 admission will be $5 per person.
Also, between now and August 15, all museum attendees receive half price on all items in the museum gift shop.
The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf was opened by Thomas Fong in 1963, in a renovated grain warehouse across the street from the handful of shops, crab pots and restaurants which then comprised Fisherman’s Wharf. With remarkable vision, Thomas Fong saw the potential of his site to lure San Franciscans and visitors alike to the waterfront and to see it as a place to spend the day, rather than just passing through for lunch. Inspired by the wax figures at the Seattle World’s Fair, he decided to open a Wax Museum. The museum started with 75 life-sized figures in front of black curtains on the first floor and opened as the largest wax museum in North America.
In the 1960s, the museum grew to four floors of exhibits with over 200 figures in elaborately staged scenes, with costumes, props and lighting, carefully constructed to authenticate people at the peak of their fame. Many scenes were designed and sculpted by Thomas Fong’s son Ronald, who co-directed the family business in partnership with his father from its inception. Ron continued to add new elements to the museum over the years, also adding a collection of gift shops and new attractions. This group of Fong operations was known as the Wax Museum Entertainment Complex and at one time included four attractions, four gift shops and an arcade, as well as a Galleria of rental shops, which were leased to independent specialty retailers. In September 1998, the historic 100-year-old San Francisco landmark that was The Wax Museum Entertainment Complex for 35 years, was torn down to make way for the current 100,000 square foot building.
MADAME TUSSAUDS is world’s best known wax attraction. Every figure is the result of 200 years of expertise and painstaking research and takes Madame Tussauds’ gifted sculptors a minimum of three months to make. Most contemporary figures are also produced following sittings with the celebrities themselves and are the result of hundreds of separate measurements, and hours matching skin tone, eye and hair colour – with every individual hair inserted separately. Underlining the close relationship Madame Tussauds has with its celebrities – they and their film studio wardrobe departments often even supply clothing for their figures, or designers will reproduce significant or iconic outfits as exact replicas, only for Madame Tussauds. www.madametussauds.com
THE SAN FRANCISCO DUNGEON will be the ultimate thrill-filled journey through the dark parts of San Francisco’s past. The black comedy of attractions, The Dungeons use a combination of theatrical storytelling by skilled actors, comedy, special effects, rides, jumps and edge of your seat surprises to really involve visitors, and bring history alive in a way that makes you laugh and shiver in equal parts. www.thedungeons.com